Most of my life, fashion was never my friend. Fashion did not have love for a girl like me. I was born in the 70’s. Girl’s and women’s fashion was not very forgiving in the 70’s, 80’s, and most of the 90’s. If we’re being honest, fashion still isn’t truly forgiving today either, as there is a large population of women that are still left out of the fashion world.
I have been larger than my peers all of my life. Even at my smallest of sizes, I was still larger compared to what the media was portraying as a “normal†body size for my age at the time. When I was a young girl, my body type was referred to as being “huskyâ€.
I remember the designer jeans phase in the 80’s like it was yesterday. A lot of the popular kids at school wore Jordache, Bonjour, Sasson, Vanderbilt, or Calvin Klein jeans. As nice as they were, designer jeans were not worn by everyone. There was a socioeconomic factor that prohibited some. If your family didn’t have a lot of disposable income, then you wouldn’t be able to afford designer jeans. The other factor was size. If you were a young girl or lady with a husky body type, it was going to be hard for you to find designer jeans that fit your body. Designer jeans were cut for a much slimmer body frame.
My family was a traditional family living in the Bay Area of California in the 80’s. My dad was an enlisted soldier in the US Army and my mom was a housewife who didn’t work outside of the home. We were a family of five during that time, living on a modest budget. The ability to buy designer jeans for my mom, my two sisters, and myself was not an option for our family budget. Even if we could afford it, I wouldn’t be able to experience the luxury of owning designer jeans made for women because designer jeans did not fit my body type.
When it was time to buy clothes for school, my mom would take me to the military exchange or to Montgomery Wards and she would have to buy me pants from the boys section. Having to wear boy’s jeans was very hard for a young girl. I was always so embarrassed that I had to get boys jeans and just couldn’t understand why girls jeans didn’t fit me. I was a girl after all. Why wasn’t I included in the fashion?
Sadly, that was just the beginning of my journey with fashion. As I got older, I was often disappointed that the cute clothes that the popular girls and women wore never fit me.
I played sports in high school so there was a point that I was able to find trendy clothes that fit me. It was at this time in my life when I really fell in love with fashion. I mostly wore dresses and skirts, as they often fit me better than pants. I was wearing a size 13 during this period. While a size 13 seems smaller for my 49-year-old self in 2021, it was pretty large for a 15-year-old high school senior.
When I left home for college, I had gained a lot of weight my freshman year. I didn’t have year-round sports to help me keep my weight down like I did in high school. I didn’t really have healthy eating habits, so the weight gain was inevitable. I found myself back in a situation where I was left out of the trendy fashion again. I started wearing mostly jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies.
Once I finished college, I started to get into step aerobics and water aerobics and running. I was able to get my weight back down. I was at a comfortable size for my liking. I was back at size thirteen. However, in the eyes of the fashion industry, I was considered plus-sized. In the mid-90’s, plus size started at a size eight.
In the mid-90’s, I had a dream of becoming a plus sized model. My younger sister wanted to be a model as well. She would have been a straight sized model. In our exploration we quickly found out how cut throat the modeling industry was. The plus sized models at the time were size eight and ten. They were nowhere near a size thirteen! There weren’t that many plus size models, and the ones that did exist weren’t Black. There was no room, or place, for me in the plus size modeling industry.
At one of the modeling cattle calls I attended, I was questioned heavily about the new solitaire diamond ring I had on my left hand. The guy who inquired had admired my ring and boldly stated, “That’s a beautiful ring you have there. Does that mean you will be popping out babies in the next few years? You know that wouldn’t work in this field right?†My human resources background made me cringe at his statements and question.
After a quick realization of what the modeling industry was, and what they wanted as a plus sized model, I gave up on my dream of becoming a model. I didn’t want to push the envelope and pursue modeling anymore. I started my career in Human Resources, married my college sweetheart, and left the modeling world behind me.
After getting married in 2000, I had trouble keeping off the weight that I had lost right before the wedding. My weight started fluctuating up and down for years, until I got prepared to get pregnant. After the birth of my son, I once again gained weight and struggled to get it off of me.
My idea of fashion had become wearing colored t-shirts from Target and jeans…every day. I was a working mom and didn’t have time to worry about fashion with my new lifestyle. The world of plus sized fashion had actually changed over the years, but I wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t shop much in the mall because there wasn’t much selection in brick and mortar stores in the Bay Area for plus sized women.
Fast forward to 2012 when I got a new manager at work. She was a gorgeous, plus sized woman, newly relocated from Georgia, who was always impeccably dressed. I was so curious where she got her clothes because I had not seen outfits like she was wearing anywhere in a store in the Bay Area, so I asked her. She told me that she bought some of the clothes back in Georgia, but mostly bought her clothes online. What?!?! I wasn’t comfortable with buying things online because I was too worried.
How would I know how the clothes would fit me? How would I know how the clothes felt to the touch? Could I mentally be able to buy clothes without trying them on first? What if they didn’t look good on me?
My manager gave me a list of her favorite online stores to shop on and she gave me the names of a few plus sized models and influencers to follow on Instagram (IG). I started checking out the IG pages of all the models and influencers she told me about, and even found a few on my own. I took a chance and started ordering clothes from all around the country.
I was blown away by how far the plus size fashion had come! Granted, the industry still has a long way to go to be completely inclusive, but it has come so far from where it was when I last was actively involved in heavy retail shopping.
In the past nine years, I have once again fallen in love with fashion. This time it is a deeper love, thanks to technology allowing me to have access to fashion from all over the world. For many years of my life, fashion and I had a true love/hate relationship. I am so thankful that we have found our way back to each other. Fashion is now an integral part of my life, and a major source of happiness for me. I even ended up starting that plus size modeling career after all, in 2020.
Do you have a love/hate relationship with fashion? What are some of the issues you have had in life regarding fashion? Let’s discuss in the comments.
